Emma Dollenmayer
ed569918@ohio.edu
How often do we as readers come across articles disguised as pieces of news advertisements in reality, many times? Unfortunately, the answer is too many, and because native advertising (defined by David Lazarus from the Los Angeles Times as "a vague way of saying that online ads will look more and more like articles, making it harder for readers to tell the difference), readers are directly being deceived.
One of the primary ethics of journalism, if not the primary ethic - both in news and public relations - is trust, and without the media disclosing whether or not their material is a paid advertisement, the public is losing sight of what news outlets it can trust, and which it is not.
According to the Los Angeles Times, to attempt and combat this, the Federal Trade Commission "announced its first-ever enforcement action involving native advertising" in 2016. However, with the rise of social media, influencers play a significant role in advertising for various entities such as clothing, makeup brands, athletic wear, protein powder, etc. It seems as persistently, without the "#ad" or "paid partnership" present, not only is the media becoming deceptive but so is social media.
Take an example, the 2017 "Fyre Festival" scandal. Fyre Festival was a fraudulent music festival created by con artist Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. The two had intended Fyre to be the next Coachella. They recruited many models to promote the festival by inviting them to a private island in the Bahamas to party and shoot footage of the women advertising Fyre.
However, in advertising for Fyre, the models did not disclose that their posts were advertisements when posting advertisements for Fyre. This situation led potential concertgoers to believe these models would be attending the festival. According to CNBC, the customers were "promised a real-life island fantasy with luxury accommodations, gourmet food, and the chance to party with celebrities like rapper Ja Rule and models Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid" according to CNBC. Yet, they were provided with tents as housing, barely enough food to survive, among other catastrophic entities. Because of McFarland's deceptive actions, people like Jenner faced possible legal action for not disclosing her post was an advertisement, ultimately demonstrating the importance of terminating native advertising or at least working toward unblurring the blurred line.
Hello Emma! I agree that trust should be prioritized as a primary ethic code in journalism, I believe that without trust there would be no journalism sources of value because the media consumers would have no reason to believe anything that is reported on. When it comes to trust in advertising the line between right and wrong is often blurred. Those creating the media and branded ads are looking to make a profit and push their products. Meanwhile, the media consumer does not always know better and sometimes does not understand what is an ad/ branded post versus what is not. I believe that all ads/ branded posts, regardless of the social media platform, should have to directly, and clearly, state that it is an ad. I felt like your blog post was well thought out and the photo you used was very fitting to the content you wrote about.
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